Dare To Be Mediocre (Time/Energy Management)

Nothing is more hip then being busy. Never have I ever encountered an entrepreneur or business-person who wasn’t “crazy busy.” If you aren’t running around closing deals, meeting people, firing off emails, or taking care of office work, then surely you aren’t successful, or so it goes. Several months ago I posted on a study that showed that some people intentionally delay responding to email so people don’t think they are too available. In the majority of cases, I think this whole “up to my eyeballs” is BS and people just like the “cowboy” approach of running around fighting fires as they come up.

The most common question I get from people I first meet is “How do you manage school, business, and everything else?” I’ve never had a good answer, but recently I distilled my three time management techniques into one simple sound bite: a) Don’t watch TV, b) For every new commitment you take on, drop one other equal commitment, and c) If it can be done in under a minute, do it NOW.

A teacher mentioned another one to our class today – dare to be mediocre. Being a perfectionist in everything is silly. Dare to be mediocre in some things, and your total value added will be extraordinary. I like it. Dare to be mediocre. Now I have a fourth sound bite.